Loose the Arrow
by stingrae90
Summary: The universe hates him, he's sure of it. There is no other explanation for this. So, he's just going to roll with it, like he does everything else that lands in his lap, half-exploded already.


**A/N: **Work - and progress - has been made on Keep Your Story Straight, but I am not going to rush that chapter, since so much has to happen there. But in the process of writing it, I am discovering other things. Some might end up in later chapters of the main story, so they aren't being posted yet. This was just a little snippet of an idea, related partially to the idea that sparked KYSS in the first place, and I am sharing it with you. I've also posted this to AO3, for those of you who like the conciseness of having all related works grouped into one easy place. Personally, I LOVE the series feature over there. Makes organizing these things so much easier.

Enjoy, and know the actual chapter will come! Just...not yet. ;)

* * *

He'd tried not to look like he was using the small bathroom in their trailer car as a hiding place, but…well. It wouldn't be the first time his dignity had been sacrificed to his need to get _away_ from people. Natasha had declared him hopeless the first time she caught him doing something similar to this, and then proceeded to teach him how to do it without attracting as much attention to himself.

He was never going to be as good at it as she was. She could disappear when she was one of only two people in a room and he sure as hell couldn't do _that_ –

"Damn it," he breathed. All of that, _all of it,_ was Clint. Not Will. He _had_ to be Will right now. Albeit a freaked out and somewhat uncertain William Brandt, Chief Analyst to a Secretary who was now dead, which was far different from the confident field agent he had been, once upon a time.

Why did he have to be stuck on this farce of a mission with _Ethan Hunt_ of all people? If anyone was going to blow his cover, it was Ethan. The man had dealt with far too many of the IMF's security problems to not recognize when something was off. Going out into the field again was _going_to bring things to his attention – hell, given his luck today, probably to Agents' Carter and Dunn as well – that Clint couldn't explain. That Will couldn't explain. Not without specific clearance and there wasn't any way to get that now, not with the Ghost Protocol in place, not unless he blew his cover on purpose. And there wasn't anything that dire going on and what was SHIELD going to do beyond pull them out if Clint called them in? Yes, they could take over the search for Cobalt, but the people that knew that information, who were in place already, were _here._ Hunt, Carter, Dunn, himself, in a way. With Cobalt confident enough to walk into the Kremlin and blow it up, something big was going down. They did _not have time_ for another team to be brought in, even as quickly as SHIELD could move one here. So, no help there. They were on their own.

_Damn it._ How was this supposed to work? He needed some sort of angle, something to buy himself some time, until he knew what exactly he was supposed to be _doing_ here, what his role was going to be. Awkward, uncertain analyst was only going to disguise him for so long. He was going to need something more tangible than that, a visible mask to hide his real purpose. Obviously there was the mysterious Cobalt to find and incapacitate. Preferably with premeditated aggression, because the bastard had thrown a _gigantic _monkey wrench into everything by blowing up the Kremlin and framing the IMF for it.

When Clint caught up to him, he was going to –

With a strangled snarl, he buried his head in the towel, vigorously rubbing to dry his hair.

_William Brandt. You are William Brandt, former field agent, and top analyst for the IMF. _Nothing_ else._

A brisk knock on the door interrupted his mental chastisement and he called a muffled "just a minute" through the towel. Glancing in the mirror one last time, he made a face at himself – eyes slightly wild but settling and hair sticking up every which way – and pulled the turtleneck over his head, letting out a soft sigh at the welcome warmth.

Drawing a deep breath, he opened the door, smiling slightly sheepishly at Ethan, who gave him a frustrated look before snapping the door closed in his face.

Clint couldn't help it. He stuck his tongue out at the closed door, and then drew Will close around him, a second skin to protect himself from the scrutiny he wouldn't be able to avoid once he rejoined the others.

"Let's go," he whispered to himself, and slipped back into the main compartment before he could overthink it and start slipping again.

"You look warmer, at least," a softly accented voice commented as soon as he emerged. Will smiled slightly at Benji Dunn, shrugging his shoulders, huddling into the warmth of the turtleneck.

"I feel it too," he answered. "I still smell too much like the river for my taste though."

Dunn's face crinkled in a grin. "That will probably linger. At least Ethan shares that misery with you."

Will felt his mouth twitch as he glanced back towards the small bathroom. "I'm not sure he shares your amusement about that." Turning back to the other agent, he arched a single eyebrow. "I'm not sure _I_ do, either."

In one of the seats along the edges of the carriage, Agent Carter rolled her eyes. "It's better than smelling like a sewer."

_Point to the grumpy lady,_ Clint thought, and Will sat on the comment before it could come out. It might be perfectly in character for Will to say, but _only_ to people he was comfortable with. This team didn't qualify, if they could even claim the title in the first place. The other three had only been a team by the default of _no time to pull a proper one together_ and Will himself was a hanger-on, even if the Secretary had most definitely been hinting at more than that in the car. With a mental shake, Will pulled himself out of that line of thought before he got caught in it. He could analyze it _later. _Dunn didn't seem to notice, half-turned toward his new maybe team mate as he frowned, more in curiosity than in frustration.

"Wouldn't that depend on the river? I mean, some of them _are_ pretty much sewer with the toxic waste that's been dumped in them-"

Will tuned out the tech agent's musing to take a better look around the small IMF cache they were taking refuge in. If this was all they had to work with, he needed to know every bit of it. Sometimes the smallest things could make the difference between a successful mission and a failure.

He knew _that_ too well; the lesson learned through blood and grief and regret. He didn't want to fail a second time. Especially not with _this particular_ team leader, when he'd already done so horribly the first time around. Not that Ethan knew that, but…but it was there, in the back of Will's mind.

His fault.

If he'd just _ignored_ protocol, if he'd just followed his instincts, that were practically _screaming_ at him that something wasn't right, she wouldn't have died and he wouldn't have this whole morass of issues to deal with stemming from it. It wasn't like he hadn't gone against orders before –

Trailing fingers along the wall as he walked the edges of the trailer, Will shook his head, eyes squeezing shut briefly. _Clint_ went against orders if he felt it was right. _Will_ did not. Not unless he had very, very good specific reasons to back up his disobedience. And he hadn't had them then. Not for Croatia. Just a feeling, a sense of pieces not fitting correctly into the puzzle.

And because he'd listened to Will, not Clint, Julia had died.

He was almost pathetically grateful that Ethan chose that moment to rejoin them, redirecting their attention to their mission just with his silent stalking stride further into the room. Will couldn't help the way he tensed nervously, and he wandered the far wall, away from Ethan, to disguise it. He'd just - he'd just keep a physical distance between them, a tangible reminder of the distance he _had_ to maintain so the whole mess that was Croatia didn't come crashing down on them. It was a distraction that no one could afford right now.

Ethan had started a video of Hendricks playing for them, but Will ignored most of it. He'd heard it before, more than once. Cobalt had been the largest target of the IMF for nearly a year and a half now, he'd had the information memorized two weeks in. It wasn't anything new, just more neauseating bull about nuclear war bringing peace, and Will made a concious effort not to pace in front of either Dunn or Carter's viewing angles. He crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall, and nearly jumped out of his skin when the wall slid back to reveal a weapons cache.

He didn't even have to feign the awkwardnss or embarrassment for Carter and Dunn when they glanced over at him, Dunn in curiosity and Carter in slight disdain. He shrugged uncomfortably and made for the wall by the door. At least he knew _that_ wouldn't be hiding any surprises for anyone. It was safe to lean on, and Will really needed to sit down.  
He pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them, folding them across the tops of his knees, just barely resisting the urge to drop his head down into them. He could already tell, this was going to be an exhausting mission, and it had barely even started.

"The Secretary," Ethan's voice floated into his awareness, solemn and steady, "is dead."

Will looked up just in time to see the shock flash across Carter's and Dunn's faces. Carter's gaze darted to him, no doubt remembering Ethan's brief introduction. _Chief Analyst_, meaning he had to have been _with_ the Secretary, that was implied in the title itself. He simply looked back at her, face neutral and still. Her gaze swung back to Ethan, riveted to his words.

"The President has initiated Ghost Protocol. We're shut down. No satellite, safe house, support or extraction. The four of us, and the contents of this car, are all that remain of the IMF. As of this moment, any action we take is unsanctioned. So if you want out, speak now."

Now or never. Should he speak up? Offer SHIELD resources for this? Or did he keep quiet and let it play out? There was enough in here, in terms of resources and personnel, to take Hendricks down. The IMF didn't scrimp on their caches. Provided nothing went wrong, that every step of this mission went off without a hitch, they could do this.

But how often did missions ever go off without a single thing going wrong? How often did that happen? Will knew the answer was never. Even if it was just something as simple as the comm going static-y, _something _always needed adjusting in the field. Taking a quick breath, he looked up, and froze at finding Ethan staring at him, waiting for an answer.

He could feel the others watching him too, and he shut his mouth and looked down. If it needed to happen, he could call SHIELD in without letting the others know. They had a limited time frame to take this bastard down, and dealing with the inevitable choas from revealing his actual status would shave precious minutes off of it.

No matter what came, William Brandt was going to take it on with every skill he had at his disposal. Hopefully, it wouldn't end up exposing Clint, but if that had to happen for the mission to go forward, so be it.


End file.
